Accelerate continues his forward momentum…

as he motored to a sensational victory at Santa Anita.  A very sharp West Coast gave him a great tussle, but the real issues for Accelerate were somewhat his own doing.  He was very “unsettled” just prior to the start while in the gate.  When the Latch was sprung he broke a little “dis-combobble-ated”.  While he didn’t break slow, he none the less put himself into a disadvanatages position… and subsequently was forced very wide through the first turn, a first quarter that was full of verve.

Sometime these big horses lose a little ground but if the pace isn’t overly lively, then – IN MY OPINION – the ground loss is no big deal, at least if the pace is slowish.  But losing ground in a lively pace is just plain bad – again in my opinion.  This was a lively pace as West Coast had company up front who made for a sharp opening 4 furlongs.  The obvious conclusion is, Accelerate TOOK THE WORST OF IT!

So to me it appeared to be both a dominating effort but also a Lifetime Best Effort, we will talk on that further when I see the figs…   for the moment, let’s just say he raced like a very good horse should race before the Breeders’ Cup.

While over on the East Coast, at Belmont, we saw a dismal display of equine excellence and an even worse display of jockeying!  Irad Ortiz should be punished for an insane ride on Diversify.  This horse has several running lines where he was a close up but off the pace position, and would go on to win.  So when Mendelssohn broke sharply from the inside post position, one would have expectd Ortiz to follow along.  But IRAD would have none of this and he got into Diviersify right away, and vigorously urged him to faster than Mendelssohn.  So Diversify went 22+, 45 + for the opening splits.  I guess Ortiz thought they were sprinting, but this was a 1 1/4 affair!   I can’t imagine what caused this “BRAIN FART” on the part of Ortiz.

After that, it appeared Thunder Snow was going to win off like a good thing, but he couldn’t change leads and ran so tired through the final 1/8th, barely going by Mendelssohn who was exhausted from his early efforts with Diversify.  Thunder Snow was more like a “light dusting snow” and a 45/1 longshot Discreet Love who has the figs of an Allowance NW1 came and won the race…  Once again, horses who race in Dubai seem to be challenged to race well again… at least if you go by Mendelsohn and Thunder Snow.

There was many other excellent and interesting take-a-ways on the day, my favorite one might be Forty Under who raced very maturely for a 2-year old on the turf.

I mentioned on Race Day that Carrick had run a crazy fast race in Arlington and at 8/1 was worth a play.  But as is often the case with CRAZY FAST RACES, especially when they are confirmed as Massive Lifetime Best Efforts, is they have trouble producing a decent effort in their next start.  The typical handicapping term for this is BOUNCE.  And that’s exactly what happened to Carrick on Saturday.  Often, this is a One and your DONE type of thing, so we shall see if we see anything from him for awhile.

Sunday has some good racing, so get involved…

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